An "invisible" to the general public aspect of the war in Ukraine is highlighted by the analyst of the American think tank "Foreign Policy Research Institute" Maximilian Hess. His analysis has to do with the decline in influence that Moscow has suffered due to the war in Ukraine. A gap that, according to the analyst, is largely exploited by the West, China and...Turkey!
Hess specifically writes: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has long considered Central Asia to be Russia's 'most stable region.' It has regularly exerted influence and political pressure on its leaders. However, after decades of stability, in the last year Russia's influence in Central Asia has deteriorated at an unprecedented rate.
Putin's view of Central Asia as part of Russia's sphere of influence was not unjustified. During his first twenty-one years in power, Russian relations remained relatively unchanged with all five former Soviet Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. While the period was not without periods of tension—Kyrgyzstan's 2005 Tulip Revolution which the Kremlin denounced as a Western-backed "color revolution," Russia's replacement of Turkmenistan as China's main pipeline gas export route— Central Asia and repeated disagreements with Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov before his death in 2016, chief among them early 2022 the Kremlin was sure to be the preeminent power in the region.
Russia's position was cemented by Kazakhstan's rapid descent into turmoil last January. The protests in Kazakhstan over the cost of living were picked up by officials unhappy about their loss of influence two and a half years after the transition from longtime former president Nursultan Nazarbayev to his handpicked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.The crisis ended only after Tokayev called on the Kremlin-controlled Collective Security Treaty Organization to intervene. It did so successfully, with Russian forces helping their Kazakh counterparts quell the unrest. China approved of Putin's actions and the West raised almost no objection.
A year later, however, the situation was completely recast. Russia has gone from being a dominant power in Central Asia to one whose influence is visibly waning. The change was not caused by events within Central Asia itself, but rather by Putin's decision to greatly expand his long-running war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.The attack exposed Putin's militarism and precipitated the largest sanctions regime against a major economy since World War II. Putin's desire for a swift and triumphant march across Ukraine to Kiev and the seizure of territory east of the Dnieper proved to be a costly fantasy.
However, a year later, Putin has shown no willingness to relinquish the conquest, even after Ukrainian forces recaptured significant areas of territory in the second half of 2022. The full effects of the war on Russia's geopolitical position have yet to be fully felt. The fighting continues and sanctions will further limit Russian state capacity the longer they remain in place.
However, some conclusions can already be drawn.
In Central Asia, Russia is no longer a regional hegemon. China's rise had already displaced it as the leading economic power in the region, but as the January 2022 events in Kazakhstan showed, Beijing has let Russia remain the preeminent political player. But just thirteen months after his virtually unchallenged intervention in Kazakhstan—an event that Putin called the death knell for alleged pro-Western color revolutions—Russian influence has waned dramatically.
Kazakhstan
Nowhere is this more evident than in Kazakhstan itself. Although Tokayev praised Putin for intervening to save his government in January 2022, just six months later Tokayev reprimanded him and refused the medal Putin had planned to bestow on him. Kazakhstan's government has spent the past year actively reaching out to the West, eager to draw a line between itself and the Kremlin.Tokayev has also openly welcomed Russians fleeing Putin's September 2022 conscription, while his government has also pressured broadcasters to limit the distribution of Russian state media.
However, the most significant changes in Kazakhstan's relationship with Russia have been economic. The country is the second largest member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, far larger than any of its constituent members except Russia. But the Kremlin's long-standing tool of using trade relations to push Kazakhstan into its desired course of action is no longer effective.In response to Kazakhstan's reluctance to openly support its invasion of Ukraine, Russia in 2022 repeatedly cut off supplies to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium - the main export route for Kazakhstan's oil to international markets. Tokayev's government, however, was not affected. He moved to increase exports through Azerbaijan, sending oil over the Caspian Sea for distribution to Turkish ports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Although this route cannot replace the Consortium's capacity for the Caspian pipeline, Astana acknowledged that Moscow's ability to pressure it was limited. Sanctions on Russian crude exports in the form of a G7 price cap that came into force in December 2022 meant Russia had to find new markets for its own exports, mainly India and China, which also received discounts record in sanctions-tainted Russian crude.
Kazakhstan is by no means leaving Russia. Its pipelines have helped ship additional Russian crude to China. But with Russia's pipelines to Europe constrained by the oil price cap, the Kremlin has had to turn to Astana to help keep them full. By January 2023, the Kremlin abandoned its strategy of restricting Kazakhstan's Caspian Pipeline Consortium's exports and allowed Kazakhstan's Kaztransoil to use the Druzhba pipeline to deliver oil to Germany and Poland. Kazakhstan's Energy Minister Bolat Aksulakov argued that such deliveries could reach 1.5 million tonnes this year - and eventually reach seven million tonnes a year, more than a third of Russia's annual exports to Berlin before February 2022. While Kazakhstan's oil exports via non-Russian routes are set to rise 50% to 1.8 million tonnes in 2022, the reality is that its geography and China's ability to buy Russian crude at a steeper discount mean its prospects for further growth is limited. But the balance of power in the relationship is tipping much less in Russia's favor as a result of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Uzbekistan
Russia's influence is also waning in Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous state. Led by Shavkat Mirzioyoyev since the death of Islam Karimov in 2016, Tashkent had spent the years before the invasion of Ukraine transforming the country from a hermitage into a more liberal economy, welcoming foreign investors from Russia as well as the West. Uzbekistan experienced its own surprise upheaval last year when Mirziyoyev's attempt to revise the constitution to extend his own time in power sparked mass protests in the western region of Karakalpakstan over proposed changes that would strip it of its nominal autonomy. Rumors spread locally that Russia may have played a role in sparking the unrest following calls to intervene online. But Mirziyoyev's crackdown proceeded without Russian action (unlike Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan is not a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization). And although Uzbekistan still welcomes Russian investment, it has used its observer status in the Eurasian Economic Union to rebuke Putin's own efforts to use energy leverage in the region. At a December 2022 Eurasian Union summit, Uzbek Energy Minister Zhurabek Mirzamakmudov said Uzbekistan would "never agree to political terms in exchange for gas" in response to Russian proposals to create a "gas alliance » Kazakhstan-Uzbek-Russia.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
Russia has also faced new limits to its influence in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, traditionally the two countries in the region most dependent on Moscow. Both countries' economies rely on remittances from Russia, and while Kyrgyzstan has in the past tried to balance Russian influence by developing ties with the West, it was on a path of closer Russian alignment before Putin's February 2022 escalation in Ukraine. Sadyr Japarov's rise to power from a prison cell to the presidency in 2021 saw Kyrgyz institutions usurped by a populist nationalist with little appetite for promoting Western democracy and an affinity for the strongman image of "Putinist" politics. Tajikistan was ruled by President Emomali Rahmon, who had long been closely aligned with Moscow, but whose position shifted further in Russia's favor with the 2021 withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. Russia deployed aid to Tajikistan in December 2021.
However, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan clashed repeatedly during 2022 amid a dispute over their shared and ill-defined border. But Russia - which has bases in both countries - has been preoccupied with Putin's war in Ukraine and has made no meaningful intervention. Its main base in Tajikistan reportedly drained troops for the fight in Ukraine. By October 2022, Rahmon himself publicly rebuked Putin, demanding more "respect" for Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan called on the Collective Security Treaty Organization to undertake a monitoring mission along the border. While the organization said it would be willing to do so, Tajikistan declined the offer. Russia's war in Ukraine has limited its ability to police even the parts of Central Asia most dependent on Russian power.
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan stands out. Nominally neutral, it is not a member of any of the Russian-led blocs in the region. In the two years leading up to 2022, Russia pursued a policy of resuming some purchases of Turkmenistan's natural gas to try to provide a new economic footing to their relationship, after purchases fell sharply after a mysterious explosion in 2009 and ended completely in 2016. But with Russia now facing an overload of its own natural gas, there is little hope that Moscow will buy much gas from Ashgabat any time soon.
Instead, Turkmenistan turned to re-engaging with the idea of building a trans-Caspian link that would transport its gas to the West via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — The pipeline's strategic position against Russia has also grown significantly as a result of Putin's attacks on Ukraine — even endorsing the idea in December. While this is no guarantee that the pipeline will ever materialize — Russia retains a veto under the 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea — it shows that even leaders willing to work with Russia, such as Erdogan, recognize that Russia's position in Central Asia has declined. Nevertheless, it remains doubtful that Turkmenistan's government will go far enough to reach out to the West, preferring to face a fellow repressive and kleptocratic regime in Moscow.
Last year marked the beginning of the end of Russia's near total dominance in Central Asia. The longer Putin's war in Ukraine continues and the tighter the international sanctions regime becomes, the greater its impact will be. The geography of the region means that its countries cannot fully distance themselves from Russia, of course, and some suspect that Central Asian trade has helped Moscow avoid sanctions. The region may still be Russia's backyard, but the gardener is absent - and it seems increasingly that there is little desire for him to return. A new era for Central Asia has begun, and the absence of a regional ruler means it is much more likely to be turbulent and potentially deadly."
